


and then he gave to me

by evocates



Category: Hidalgo (2004), Sharpe - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Supernatural Elements, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:43:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/pseuds/evocates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank meets a soldier in a London bar during his trip back home. He wears his silver spurs, and Sharpe has summer wine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and then he gave to me

**Author's Note:**

> For helena_s_renn@LJ's birthday. She asked for Sharpe/any Viggo I want with the prompts ‘prime’ and/or ‘champagne bottle’. I went dreadfully awry with those prompts, and what ended up is this, entirely inspired by the song [Summer Wine](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQMbUyv-F3Q).

His silver spurs clinked against the ground with every single step he took, a soft music that was both bells and drums. It was the only luxury Frank had allowed himself to buy with the prize money he had won at the great Arab races. The rest would be kept for home, for the horses and the people who needed it far more than Frank needed or would ever need expensive clothes and shining boots.

But he had seen the silver spurs as he rode through Lebanon, heading towards the Mediterranean Sea to catch a ship back to America. They had called him over, a strange siren’s song that called not with sound but with light, silver glinting like captured moonlight beneath the shaded canopy of the little stall. Frank disliked spurs on principle – they were cruel devices, made for terrible riders who could not urge their horses on with friendship or kindness – but the edges of the spurs were blunt, they were beautiful, and his new money was heavy in his pockets.

Now he was on a ship, the passage paid again with the Sheik’s money. They travelled from the Mediterranean Sea past southern Europe and the Straits of Gibraltar before heading northwards towards England. It was an unwieldy route, Frank was told, for most times the ship would have begun from the Red Sea and curved around Africa and the Cape of Good Hope before turning towards America, but there were British passengers on board, and they paid good money to go home.

Such as Lady Davenport.

She was no longer as cordial and helpful as she had been, but then again, Frank had no more need for her friendliness. A horse who won the Great Race was not a horse taunted by fools who wished to try their luck. Frank thought himself to be a wise man as well, so he carried nothing but a few gold coins and a single dime with him as the ship docked in England. The rest of the money he kept safely in a box in the Captain’s cabin; the Captain and his crew were honest men, that much he knew, and they were kept safe by something stronger than money – by their honour, and their reputations, and Frank knew the locked chest of gold he had been given would be safe in their keeping.

They docked in Lancaster, towards the North of England, for shore leave. After this, Frank was told, they would head directly westward. It was only three days of leave; just enough for the crew to have their shore leave while the passengers regained their land legs before stumbling back on the ship again. Two dawns already passed, yet Frank still found Lancaster to have its own charms. It was not London, not the capital city with its great bustling population, but there were huge factories – the like of which Frank had never seen before – bellowing a great deal of black and grey smoke into the skies. The colours soaked into it almost completely. The people were almost grey as well, many of them thin and constantly coughing – a result of the mills, he heard – though there were still plenty of people rich enough to be in carriages, dressed all fancy-like.

Frank reckoned that people like that existed in every country, and only the clothes changed, and that caught his interest for far too little time.

It was horses and people that he was interested in, and on his second day he found a small pub with a stable nearby. The horses were pathetic creatures, thin with bloodied mouths, their muscles and tendons standing out from their skins from ill-feeding and overwork. Carriage horses they were, and Frank knew the sort well enough, but they were horses nonetheless, and Frank knew that a beautiful, purebred horse was not the best or fastest one.

The truth applied to people as well, but Frank kept those thoughts silent in his lungs, because he was not here to make trouble – only to drink.

He saw that boy on his second day here as well. ‘Boy’ was an unkind estimate, because there was the harshness in the green eyes he saw but once that said that the young man had seen far more than his deserved share of hardship. But that told nothing of age, really, because Frank knew all too well the kinds of suffering people could go through, regardless of their age or station. That lesson he learned inadvertently from Jazira, back in the desert of Najd.

(Frank learned how to pronounce those names correctly as well, but that was a minor achievement.)

Half-light it was outside when Frank stepped into the pub, and it was an empty place. Most of those who came in hadn’t finished their work yet; there were only drunkards, idlers, and those who came to drown their sorrows in the bottle because they could not find jobs. Strange places pubs were, because they grew lighter as darkness descended everywhere else, and they were dark when it was light outside.

Now it was only grey as Frank bought (what the British called) a pint and went to the corner table. He pulled his hat low down his face, hiding most of it while he watched the owner and the barmaid – likely his daughter – make their rounds.

It was dark outside when feet approached his table. Frank heard the sound of a wooden stool being dragged over the dirt floor, but only the _thump_ of someone taking a seat could make him look up.

“I haven’t seen you here before,” the stranger said, and he was no stranger at all – it was the young man with the hard green eyes that he had watched caring for the horses yesterday. “Are you new to town?”

“Just visiting,” Frank answered. He sipped at his ale. “My ship’s docked near here.”

“Aye?” the young man raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look much of a sailor.”

“I’m no sailor,” Frank shrugged. He couldn’t help but wonder why the young man had approached him; why he had started the conversation. “I’m a cowboy,” he said, and cocked his head to the side, correcting himself. “A long distance rider.”

“Long distance, eh?” the young man leered. “So you’ve got the stamina, don’t you?”

Frank blinked. The mug smacked hard against the wood as he slammed it down. Beer splashed over his wrist, and Frank lifted his hand, licking against the wetness. No point wasting alcohol.

“On a horse,” Frank’s voice was half-muffled by his own fingers. A shiver crept down his spine as he felt the burning gaze fixed upon his neck, and he looked upwards.

“Do you have a name?” he asked suddenly, and he was himself surprised by the question. He wasn’t a man who was usually interested in the names of others; either they gave it or Frank never knew about it. In a world of strangers, in a city of even stranger mysteries, Frank did not feel the urge to ask until now.

“Richard Sharpe,” the young man said.

It was a fitting name for a face with lines that seemed carved out of stone, all of its angles protruding as if the young man wished to escape his own skin. A strong face with hard eyes, and that should be common enough. There were plenty of men like that that Frank had known but he still could not keep his eyes away from that face.

“You work with the horses here?”

“Aye,” Sharpe replied. His hand reached out, curling over Frank’s hand around the wooden mug. A green gaze fixed upon Frank’s as Sharpe lifted his hand and took a long draught.

“But I don’t think you watched me so intently yesterday just so we can talk ‘bout horses, eh?” With his back blocking the view of the two of them, Sharpe tilted his head, his rough, raspy tongue teasing the very tips of Frank’s fingers. “I have a room near here where we can have a private conversation,” he continued, his lips somehow finding the underside of Frank’s wrist. “But if you really want to talk ‘bout horses, we can always go to the stables.”

The young man had a deep voice that sounded far older than his years. Frank’s eyes lidded heavily, and his breath came hot from his nostrils. Like a panting horse.

“You don’t even know my name,” he protested.

“So give it to me,” countered Sharpe. 

“Frank Hopkins,” he said. He wondered if news of his victory had reached England, had reached this poor little port town, and he didn’t know if he wished for it or not. 

Sharpe let his hand go, and Frank flinched slightly at the sound of the wooden mug hitting the table.

“That’s an interesting name.”

“Is it?” Sharpe didn’t seem the type to make polite conversation. The very thought of it was laughable when Frank could feel the ghost of Sharpe’s mouth against his own skin.

“Mm,” Sharpe cocked his head to the side, licking his lips. “The beer’s shite here. Come on, Frank Hopkins. I’ll take you to me room.”

Frank knew he shouldn’t. He was no romantic, but he wasn’t the sort who would go home with anyone and everyone just because they had a pretty face and a slim body. He wasn’t the sort who would be enchanted by a good voice either. Yet there was something about Sharpe, or maybe something in the ale, and he felt something inside him tug-tug-tugging at him, pulling him forward as if he had a bridle around his neck and Sharpe had a hand on his reins.

He turned and picked up the mug of beer again. Frank kept his eyes on Sharpe as he drained the beer, dropping a few coins down to pay for it. Sharpe’s lips were red and glistening as he licked them, grinning.

There were some things that Frank always told himself that he should not do. Not only out of caution or fear, but also because they were just not in his nature.

“Alright.”

*

“I’ve got wine ‘round here,” Sharpe said the moment Frank stepped inside. The door closed with a strangely heavy finality behind him. “It’s good, and it’ll wash down the shite beer at least.”

“The beer wasn’t that bad,” Frank said. 

“Aye, if yer used ta drinking piss,” Sharpe snorted. He turned away, walking into what looked like he kitchen of the small cottage. 

There was an instinct inside Frank that told him to drag the time out until morning and not to allow Sharpe to touch him during all of that time. It was an instinct that had him stealing water in the desert, the same instinct that made him watch as sand became a storm and swallowed living men while their screams were muffled at the roar. Sharpe’s eyes were bright green, like will-o-wisps that dance across the field. He smiles with teeth far too white for a place as dingy and dirty as the pub, and Frank wondered how this man found the time and money to clean his teeth, or if it was simply because he had good luck.

Frank was a cowboy, a rider, a horseman. He had to believe in luck, in ghosts, in spirits, in the things hidden in the shadows of the world that he would never fully understand. If he didn’t, the magic of the bond between him and his horse would be gone in a single blink. The strangeness of the world humans and animals both inhabit, the world that was untouched by the logical tools of science that tried to pin the world into numbers like a needle does a butterfly – that was the only commonality Frank ever had with any horse who allowed him onto their backs. If he allowed the mystery to slip his fingers, then he would never be able to ride again. That was what Frank believed. He always followed his instincts.

Somehow, when Sharpe returned, he looked into green eyes and he saw a man who was both mysterious and honest, a man who laid out all of ‘who’ he was and never once mentioned ‘what’ he was.

Sharpe set down two glasses. They were crystal-cut things that seemed a little bit too posh and expensive for a place so cheap and run-down. Frank had a sudden thought, that it was as if the glasses were the most precious things a farmer owned, usually kept hidden away until important guests arrived and they would be taken out and used.

But this was Lancaster, the skies filled with smoke from factories. Frank had not seen a single farmer around; this was a ridiculous fancy.

A bottle popped open. The new wine was red, a shining, brilliant red that reminded Frank of the desert sun just before it set. He picked up the glass, swirling the liquid around. Red stained the glass before it crawled downwards, and Frank wondered how a young man with hard eyes like Sharpe had found something like this.

“It’s a pity I’m not more of a drinker,” Frank murmured. “Seems like a wine like this has to be appreciated better.”

“Purpose of wine is to get me drunk, cowboy,” Sharpe said, grinning. “And to get you drunk too.”

There was an edge to Sharpe’s smile that alerted a part of Frank’s mind, the same part that always warned him right before a horse stepped on a stone on the path, or when a horse was about to rear. He stared at the glint of Sharpe’s teeth, bright white against the dimness of the room.

“That’s hard to do,” Frank said eventually.

He tasted the wine. It was sweet like the strawberries and cherries, the expensive fruits brought in from the north of America to the south in the heat of summer. Frank had eaten plenty of them wild, but there was only once when the flavour was so strong. A visitor to the show had gifted them a full basket of strawberries and cherries for he was a grocer and there was little money he could spare, so he paid for his entertainment with fruits.

The wine slid down his throat like fire, and Frank’s tongue itched for more. He tipped his head back and downed the rest of the glass, a tingling that began in his chest and spread outwards to his fingers. It pooled in his groin, and Frank’s breath hitched.

Sharpe filled his glass again before pouring his own.

“Strong stuff,” Frank said.

“Just a little bit.”

There was that smile again, entrancing and dangerous all at once. Sharpe’s lips were coloured a dark red by the wine, and he licked at it, the tip of his tongue peeking through his teeth. Frank’s heart slammed hard in his chest, throwing all breath out of his throat, and his fingers clenched convulsively around the stem of the crystal-cut glass. Not even in the midst of the Ocean of Fire had he felt the world tip this way.

“Really strong stuff,” he said, and his own words seemed to come in from somewhere far away, so far away that only echoes reverberated in his ears.

“Maybe.” There was the clink of crystal on wood. Sharpe pushed back his chair, standing up. His hand was hot on Frank’s shoulder, pushing him back, hard, against the back of his chair.

“Why don’t you take off your boots, cowboy?”

Frank looked down. The glint of silver spurs shone bright against his eyes, and he focused on it. His fingers stumbled over the laces, but Sharpe’s fingers against his own made him tremble very slightly before he managed to pull them off.

_What are you doing_ , he wanted to ask, but before the words could even form on his tongue, he knew it was useless to ask that. It was obvious enough; it was obvious when Sharpe decided to sit at his table. Frank took off his silver spurs and placed them on the table.

No, the question he truly wanted to ask was far simpler, and far more complicated.

_What are you_?

He looked up to Sharpe and saw the glint of white teeth again, but this time Frank turned his shiver into a movement, pulling off his jacket. Heated fingers hooked into the scarf of his neck, and Frank tipped his head back, letting Sharpe slide it off. The red cloth dropped onto the dirt floor, a splash of red.

“Do you do this often?”

Sharpe laughed. It was, Frank thought, a sound that should not be so deep, so resonant, until it bounced off of the walls.

“Will you undress faster if I tell you you’re the first that I’ve ever done this to?”

“No,” Frank whispered. “I know you’ll be lying.”

“That’s a clever thought.”

There was heat in the desert, a scorching heat that dug into his skin and set his bones on fire. The desert was a sea of fire that he submerged himself into, until all of his nerves were screaming. His legs ached so hard from holding onto Hidalgo, and it took days before his fingers learned to uncurl, until he knew how to hold onto something in the shape of a cup without fearing that his bones would shatter. Heat, endless heat, and Frank could not stop thinking about it. Not even in this England town with the cool sea breeze creeping in through the window and brushing against his skin. Or maybe it was just this man standing in front of him. 

Frank watched as Sharpe tugged off the laces holding his white shirt together; watched as he slipped them off. His skin was pure gold, marred at some places with scars. There was one large white one that sliced from the top of his shoulder downwards, and Frank spread his hand open, trying to cover it with his longest finger and his palm.

“Where did you get this?”

“From long ago,” Sharpe replied, and it was no answer at all.

Sometimes Frank had to remind himself that he was no longer in the desert. The linen sheets of the bed was rough against his skin – that he expected – and Frank shuddered slightly as he felt himself being pressed down into the mattress. The springs squeaked underneath, the sound sudden and wrenching through the air, and the curtains at the window blew outwards from the strong breeze. Frank realised that he was naked and there was bare skin sliding against his own, and he wondered how and when that had happened.

This was like a dream, a mirage, a hallucination that was somehow less real than that of his people he saw in the depth of the Arabian desert as he sang a song, praying for help.

_What are you_ , he mouthed against Sharpe’s skin as their bodies pressed tightly against each other. _What are you_ , he asked silently as Sharpe’s hand slid down his body, curved into the edge of his hip, a callused thumb rubbing the juncture between his pelvis and his thigh.

Frank knew he wouldn’t have an answer. He wasn’t even sure he wanted one.

Strands of hair fell into his eyes and Frank grabbed them without even thinking about it. He tugged Sharpe’s head back, looking into green eyes before their lips crashed together. He tasted strawberries and cherries; fruits left out too long in the heat and the juices that spread in his mouth, scalding his tongue, with the first bite. Sweetness and fire. Frank shuddered.

“What do you want?”

“Touch me,” Frank found himself saying. He arched his back, chasing the heat that lay teasingly along his thigh. Catching Sharpe’s eyes, he quirked his lips upwards. “This isn’t your first time, is it? You should know what to do.”

Sharpe stared at him for a long moment. His finger traced the edge of Frank’s lip, and Frank opened his mouth, taking it in. He tasted more sugar, not salt, and that was strange; but what was one more oddity amongst the sea of the same?

“Aye, I know what to do.”

Frank’s knees hit his chest, Sharpe’s hands on the back of his thighs. He bent back as much as he could. He could feel his cock hard between his legs, and his eyes widened when he felt Sharpe’s lips brush against his thigh. Frank was no virgin, was no stranger to sex even though he rarely sought it, but when Sharpe’s mouth enveloped his cock, he found himself bucking up, his voice filling the room as he yelled.

Heat, the scalding Arabian sands turned into velvet, smoother than velvet. Frank’s fingers curled around the linen sheets, nails digging into the rough cloth, and he barely managed to swallow back his next cry, to turn it into a moan. Almost, too much, not enough, as if he was dangled above a precipice and he didn’t know which way he wanted to turn.

Then it was gone.

He blinked open his eyes, lips parted to speak, but Sharpe’s eyes caught him. Hard green eyes had turned into something that made Frank think of molten emeralds, and Sharpe smiled again. He pulled back, feet thumping against the dirt floor. Frank breathed.

“Is that all?”

Sharpe picked up his own crystal glass, still more than half-filled with sunset-red wine. He turned around, looking at Frank for a long moment before he dipped his fingers into the wine and climbed back onto the bed. 

“You’re an impatient bastard, aren’t you?”

The teasing note in Sharpe’s voice was so unexpected that Frank laughed, and the sound was muffled as Sharpe pressed his fingers into his mouth, making him swallow the heady sugariness of the wine. Strawberries and cherries, and Frank knew he would never see those fruits again without thinking of this night.

He didn’t know if he would regret that.

“The glass’s on the bed,” Sharpe murmured against his neck. “Try not to move too much, aye? We won’t want to spill it.”

“Why not?” Frank asked, his words mangled by Sharpe’s fingers. It would be almost poetic, he thought, the splash of the red, red wine on the sheets.

Sharpe smiled, leaning down even further. His fingers slipped out of Frank’s mouth, wet and filthy as they slipped down Frank’s body. Frank’s eyes slipped close as he felt teeth against his ear.

“It’s expensive.”

There were words, plenty of words that needed to be said, but there was the tinkling of fingers against crystal, there was the piercing burn as Sharpe pressed two fingers inside him. Frank’s words turned into incoherent, melting in his mouth, mixing with sugar, and he clenched hard against the sheets as he tried to not move. It seemed important, somehow, to not spill the wine.

Frank had never done this, never gone to bed with a man, and yet despite the strangeness of the situation, despite the tension that Frank could not exorcise, his body accepted Sharpe’s easily. His breath shivered in his lungs and Sharpe’s figure was a blur of the various shades of gold. Like the desert come to life, the sun captured in skin and hair, mixed with the green of tree is an oasis as Sharpe leaned in and took his mouth again.

The bed rocked, creaked, and Frank’s eyes flicked to the side. The crystal glass held steady somehow even as the wine inside moved like the drawing in and out of the tides. He watched, panting through an open mouth, as Sharpe pulled his fingers out of him and took up the crystal glass. He watched as Sharpe poured the wine down, until red mixed in with the dark blond of his own hair, the thick liquid holding steady as Sharpe streaked lines like blood down Frank’s body before he pressed three fingers, slicked with wine, inside him.

His heels dug into the bed as Sharpe’s tongue licked at the wine, as Sharpe’s fingers drove all the way inside him. But he couldn’t hold still, because the wine seemed to have bottled lightning as well, and a shot pleasure wrapped like a whip around his spine. Frank threw his head back, gasped in a desperate attempt to form words, and Sharpe’s hand was on his lips again. 

Sweet wine dripping into his mouth, curling around his throat, spreading outwards through his nerves. 

Frank surged upwards by his elbows, his teeth sinking into the soft flesh of Sharpe’s fingertips as he sucked the wine from the skin.

“The glass hasn’t moved,” Frank said, and he was surprised himself at how steady his voice sounded. He forced open his eyes, reaching out and cupping the back of Sharpe’s neck, pulling him forward. “Is there a reward?”

Sharpe turned his head, and his chuckle disappeared into Frank’s hair. He dipped his fingers into the glass, lifting it up above his head until the red drops landed in his mouth. Frank licked his lips, his eyes moving down, down, watching as Sharpe watched his wine-stained hand around his own cock, stroking it slowly.

“Oh aye, there’s plenty of reward,” Sharpe said, and for the first time Frank was sharply aware of his accent, of the rich curl of his tongue around the words as if he caressed each syllable fully with his mouth before letting the sounds escape him, one by one.

_What are you?_

But Frank had no more time to ponder. Sharpe lifted the glass and drained it, placing it on the floor. With his mouth full of white and his lips tainted red, he leaned forward and kissed Frank, and strawberries and cherries poured into Frank’s mouth, an explosion of heat and sweetness that had him gasping, drowning, his body shaking. It was then that he felt Sharpe pull his thighs fully open and thrust inside him in one movement, slamming inside until Frank’s entire body slid backwards on the bed, his shoulders hitting the headboard.

He tried to breathe. Wine ran small streams down the side of his mouth. Frank snapped his legs around Sharpe’s hips, holding on tight, and his arms slipped backwards. The skin on Sharpe’s back was smooth, overly smooth, like hundreds of scars laid over each other, and Frank could not help opening his eyes. Sharpe gave him a small smile before he felt a rough tongue against his jaw, stroking over the rough hairs of his stubbled beard as the wine was licked away.

There was an answer there, at the very edge of his mind, given to him by red wine and green eyes. Frank reached out for it, his fingertips grazing against the scars he could not see, but Sharpe thrust hard inside him and his mind blanked with pleasure. 

It was perhaps half of eternity; it was perhaps only a few minutes. Frank did not know. He counted time by his heartbeat when he was calm; by the sun in the desert; but there was no sun in this room and his heart roared like a massive drum, its beat staccato. It beat in his ear as fire streaked through his veins, and Frank had no mind to count, much less measure, and he thought this, just _this,_ must be like standing in the middle of the Sun.

When he came his body was still, clutching on tightly to Sharpe. Frank could not breathe until air rushed back in and he was gasping, panting in time to Sharpe’s continuing, almost brutal thrusts. He felt like a doll for a moment, a living, seeing doll as his eyes fixed upon Sharpe. Those green eyes had turned black, completely black, and Frank whined low in his throat as he felt Sharpe shudder against his body, as more heat rushed inside him, wringing pleasure that was so much like pain.

*

“You didn’t tell me what you are,” Frank said after he found that his tongue would form words again. Sharpe was still leaning over him, their breaths rapid and wet against each other’s skin.

“I used to be a farrier,” Sharpe said. “This is one of the many odd jobs I used to do, and now I do.”

Frank cocked his head to the side, his fingers reaching up and streaking the dew his breath made on Sharpe’s cheek. “That isn’t an answer.”

“I’m a soldier, cowboy,” Sharpe laughed. He pulled back, leaning on his knees. Frank hissed out a breath as he felt Sharpe pulling out of him, and his body shuddered from head to toe.

“I used to be a soldier, almost,” said Frank. “I was a courier, delivering messages in war.”

“I know,” Sharpe said, and his smile was crooked. 

Frank wanted to ask more, to prod Sharpe until the secrets of his being poured out of his mouth and into Frank’s mind. He wanted words, all the words that hung in the air, invisible and inaudible, during all the time they had known each other. Sharpe had fucked him and yet Frank still knew nothing about him. But Sharpe’s smile widened just a little bit more, and Frank felt his eyes falling close.

The bed was softer than sad, there was sugar on his tongue and cool wind against his skin, but when Frank fell asleep, it was like he was in the desert again, surrounded by the heat of the sun. 

*

The room was empty when Frank woke up.

The crystal glasses were gone along with the bottle of the wine; along with Sharpe, and any signs of Sharpe’s clothes. Frank dressed slowly. He knew his silver spurs were gone; knew too, that all of his money had disappeared. All he had left was his clothes and an ache between his legs, worse than any he ever had from riding astride a horse. But the stronger pain was his craving for strawberries and cherries and heat, for the wine Sharpe had offered him the night before.

Knowledge sat in the back of his mind like a resting horse that refused to unfold itself. He knew he could have it if he thought hard enough, but he went to the owner of the pub he had been in last night instead. The man took one look at him and motioned for him to sit down, and brought him a cup of strong tea.

“There’s a young man here last night,” Frank said, his hands wrapped around the cup. He was surprised at the hoarseness of his voice. “Blond, tall, with green eyes. I think he works in your stables?”

The owner snorted. He rubbed his cloth even harder against the inside of the wooden mug he was cleaning. “Aye, him. There’s plenty of people who asked ‘bout him, especially strangers when they come in here because they don’t know any better.” He shrugged. “I don’t know his name, sir, much less how to find him. I’ll tell you something, though – you’re lucky to have escaped with your life, sir, and that’s the truth of it.”

“Sharpe.”

“What?” the owner paused in his vigorous cleaning.

“Richard Sharpe,” Frank said. He cleared his throat. “That’s what he told me his name was.”

“Why, the cheek of that bastard!” The mug was set down on the table with a hard _thump_. “He’s gone and taken the name of a hero for himself, eh?”

“A hero?”

“Aye,” the owner said. He picked up another mug and started cleaning it again. “The only Richard Sharpe I know fought in wars against the French bastard Napoleon eighty or so years ago. He comes from ‘round here, up North, though he’s born in Yorkshire. Sheffield, they say. Man saved Wellington’s life and made from a common soldier to a Colonel of some sort, or so they say.” He shrugged. “Near a legend he was during my grandda’s time, but the name’s near forgotten by now.” 

“What happened to him?”

“They said they become a farmer in France, or some sort like that.”

“Growing strawberries and cherries, and making wine,” murmured Frank.

“Pardon me, sir?” the owner blinked.

How could you explain that you laid in the same bed as a legend, a man who was supposed to have died years and years ago, a man who was said to have never returned to the place where he was born? Richard Sharpe the soldier wasn’t even born in Lancaster. There was no reason to believe that the young man with the hard green eyes that Frank met last night was the very same soldier who fought in wars so long ago. Yet somehow, Frank knew deep in his bones that it was the same man.

Frank picked up the cup of tea and sipped at it. It was far too strong. He swallowed, and said instead, “He took my money and my silver spurs.”

“Aye, he’s a thief,” the owner said, snorting. “I’ll give him a thrashing if I ever see him, what with his loitering ‘round here in the stables and stealing things from me customers.” He looked at Frank a little helplessly before he shrugged. 

“If you walk ‘round you might find him, sir, but I won’t bet on it. No one’s ever seen him before sunset. Is what he took important?”

Frank remembered the heat of the desert; the sight of the silver spurs glinting in the sun, and his thought that he would buy them as a single solid reminder of the desert. He thought he would run his thumb along the edge of the blunted blade and remember Jazirah and the Sheik and all that he learned while riding Hidalgo through Najd.

But now he had strawberries and cherries on his tongue, and the desert was so far away because heat gained another meaning entirely.

The pub owner was still staring at him. Frank gave him a small smile.

“It’s nothing important, partner. Don’t worry about it.” He tipped the edge of his head downwards before he turned and walked outside.

The wind was warm now, and the sun was bright and high in the skies, but Frank shivered as he shoved his hands into his pockets. There were phantom touches he could still feel, a gaze that burned like a match held too close to his skin, but when Frank looked around he could see no one. He lidded his eyes, looking upwards and pulling his hat down so he could look at the bright clouds, the sun’s strong light causing little red spots to appear in front of his eyes.

He wondered if he would ever feel the sun’s heat on his skin without remembering the taste of sweet strawberries and cherries on his tongue.

_End_


End file.
